The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

“Sir,” said the little man, “I ask for nothing but justice.”

“You go forward again, Burton,” said the mate of the rescued boat; “you’ll have plenty of chance to talk to the magistrate to-morrow.”

“Not till the gentleman hears me!” cried the little man.

“What do you want?” said the lieutenant. “What is the trouble?”

“Sir, I have been foully dealt with,” said the little man. “I am a lawyer; my name is Roger Burton. I am a man of repute and was held in respect by all who knew me in Southampton, whence I came. Sir, I was struck upon the head at night and nearly killed, and while I lay unconscious I was kidnapped, and came to myself only to find myself aboard of a vessel bound for the Americas.”

“He was one of a lot of redemption servants brought aboard at Plymouth,” said the mate. “He appeared to have been hurt in a drunken brawl.”

“Sir,” the little man protested, vehemently, “I was never so drunk as that in all my life.”

“Well, I am sorry for you, my man, if what you say is true,” the lieutenant said, “but ’tis none of my business. Many men are brought hither to America as you say you have been, and your case is not any worse than theirs. I am sorry for you, but the affair is not mine to deal with.”

“What, sir!” cried the little man, “and is that all the satisfaction I am to have? Is that all you, one of his Majesty’s officers, have to say to me who hold the position of a gentleman? Sir, in the eyes of the law, I have a right to sign myself esquire, as you have the right to sign yourself lieutenant, and to go under a gentleman’s title. Am I, then, to be put off so when I do but ask for justice?”

“You may sign yourself what you choose,” said the lieutenant; “and as for justice, I tell you ’tis none of my affairs. I am not a magistrate, I am an officer of the navy. You are a lawyer, you say – well, then, you can plead your own case when you get ashore, and if you have justice on your side, why, I have no doubt but that you will obtain it.”

“Come, now, Burton, you go forward where you belong,” said the mate.

The little man gave one last earnest look at the lieutenant. He must have seen that it was of no use to plead his case further, for he turned and walked away with his head hanging down.

“How many of those poor people had you aboard?” the lieutenant asked.

“We had fifteen in all. I had seven with me in the boat; six men and one woman. All the others but two died of smallpox.”

CHAPTER XLII

THE NEXT DAY

JACK was awakened at the first dawn of day by the sea-gulls clamoring above him. Their outcries mingled for a little while with his dreams before he fairly awoke. He found himself standing up. The sun was shining. There was the beach and the sandy distance. Dred came walking toward him up from the boat, and a great and sudden rush of joy filled his heart. “Why, Dred,” he cried out, “I thought you were dead!” Dred burst out laughing. “I was only fooling you, lad,” he said; “I weren’t hurt much after all.” Then that terrible tragedy had not really happened. He must have dreamed it. Dred had not been shot, and he had not died. The sea-gulls flew above their heads screaming, and his soul was full of the joy of relief.

Then he opened his eyes. The sun had not yet arisen, but he was still full of the echo of joy, believing that Dred was alive, after all. He arose and stood up. The motionless figure was lying in the distance just as he had left it the night before.

But, after all, Dred might not be dead, and there might be some truth in his dream. He might have been mistaken last night. Perhaps Dred was alive, after all, and maybe better this morning.

He went over to where the silent figure lay, and looked down into the strange, still face – upon the stiff, motionless hands. Yes; Dred was dead. As Jack stood looking he choked and choked, and one hot tear and then another trickled down either cheek. They tasted very salt.

Then he began to think. What was he to do now? Something must be done, and he must do it himself, for he must not ask the young lady to help him. He went down to the boat. There was nothing there that he could use, and so he walked off some distance along the beach. At last he found a barrel, that had perhaps been cast up by a storm, and which now lay high and dry upon the warm, powdered sand which had drifted around it, nearly covering it. He kicked the barrel to pieces with his heel, and pulled up two of the staves from the deeper layer of damp sand beneath. He had walked some distance away, and now he turned and went back to where the still figure lay motionless in the distance. The young lady had not yet awakened, and he was glad of it.

He was trembling when he had ended his task. Suddenly, while he was still kneeling, the sun arose, throwing its level beams of light across the stretch of sand, now broken and trampled, where he had been at work. He smoothed over the work he had made. The damper particles stuck to his hands and clothes, and he brushed them off. Then he took down the shelter that he and the young lady had built up over Dred’s head the day before, carrying the oars and the young lady’s clothes down to the boat. Then he came back and carried down the overcoats. By that time she had arisen. Jack went straight up to her where she stood looking around her. “Where is he?” she said.

Jack did not reply, but he turned his face in the direction. She saw where the smooth surface of the sand had been broken and disturbed, and she understood. She hid her face in her hands and stood for a moment, and Jack stood silently beside her. “Oh,” she said, “I was dreaming it was not so.”

“So was I,” said Jack, brokenly, and again he felt a tear start down his cheek.

“It did not seem to me as if it could be so,” she said. “It don’t even seem now as though it were so. It was all so dreadful. It doesn’t seem as though it could have happened.”

“Well,” said Jack, heaving a convulsive sigh, “we’ll have to have something to eat, and then we’ll start on again.” The thought of eating in the very shadow of the tragedy that had happened seemed very grotesque, and he felt somehow ashamed to speak of it.

“Eat!” she said. “I do not want to eat anything.”

“We’ll have to eat something,” said Jack; “we can’t do without that.”

The task of pushing the yawl off into the water was almost more than Jack could accomplish. For a while he thought they would have to wait there till high tide in the afternoon. But at last, by digging out the sand from under the boat, he managed to get it off into the water. “I’ll have to carry you aboard, mistress,” he said.

He stooped and picked her up, and walked with her, splashing through the shallow sheet of water that ran up with each spent breaker upon the shining sand. He placed her in the boat and then pushed it off. The breakers were not high, but they gave the boat a splash as Jack pulled it through them.

He rowed out some distance from the shore, and she sat silently watching him. Then he unshipped the oars and went forward and raised the sail. By this time the morning was well advanced. The breeze had not yet arisen, but cat’s-paws began to ruffle the smooth surface of the water. Then by and by came a gentle puff of breeze that filled out the sail, and swung the boom out over the water. Jack drew in the sheet, and the boat slid forward with a gurgle of water under the bows. Then the breeze began blowing very lightly and gently.

This was Sunday morning.

They sailed on for a long, long distance without speaking. Both sat in silence, he sunk in his thoughts, and she in hers. He was trying to realize all that had happened the day before, but he could hardly do so. It did not seem possible that such things could have actually happened to him. He wondered what she was thinking about – Virginia, perhaps. Yes; that must be it. And he was going back to Virginia, too. How strange that he should be really going back there – the very place from which he had escaped two months before! Was there ever anybody who had had so many adventures happen to him in six months as he? Then something caused him suddenly to remember how he had reached out the evening before, and had touched Dred’s senseless hand. There seemed to him something singularly pathetic in the stillness and inertness of that unfeeling hand. Then came the memory of the silent face, of those cold lips that one day before had been full of life, and it was profoundly dreadful. He shuddered darkly. Was this always the end of everything? – of the rushing breeze, the dazzling sunlight, the beautiful world in which men lived? Death is terrible, terrible to the eyes of youth.

“Do you know,” said the young lady, suddenly, breaking upon the silence, “it does not seem possible that I am really to see my father again, and maybe so soon. I’m trying to feel that it is so, but I can’t. I wonder what they will all say and do! Oh, it seems as though I couldn’t wait! I wonder how much further ’tis to Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack; “but it can’t be much further. I’ve been thinking that those sand-hills on ahead must be at Cape Henry. I only saw it in the evening when I was on Blackbeard’s sloop, the time we were bringing you down to Bath Town; but the hills look to me like Cape Henry. And, do you see, the coast runs inward there. I can’t tell, though, whether ’tis only a bend in the shore, or whether ’tis the bay.”

“My father will never forget what you’ve done,” she said, looking straight at him.

“Will he not?” said Jack.

“He will never forget it.”

Her words brought a quick spasm of pleasure to Jack. He had not thought before of the reward he should receive. Of course there would be some reward – some great reward. It was perhaps then that he first realized what a thing it was he had done – that he had brought Colonel Parker’s daughter safe away from the pirates, through the very jaws of death! Yes; it was a great thing to have done; and again there came that spasm of delight. The future had suddenly become very bright. It seemed now to throw back a different light upon all those dreadful things that had passed, and they became transformed into something else. They were no longer gloomy terrors – they were great events leading to a great success.

It was late afternoon when they slid before the wind around the high sand-hills of the cape. As the bay slowly opened before them they saw that there were three sails in sight. One of them, far away, apparently a schooner, was coming down the bay as though to run out around the cape to the southward.

“See that boat!” cried out the young lady. “’Tis coming this way. Don’t you believe we could stop it, and get the captain to take us back to Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack; “’tis like she won’t stop for me, but I’ll try it if you’d like me to.”

He put down the helm of the yawl so as to run up across the course upon which the distant vessel seemed to be sailing. They watched her in silence as slowly, little by little, she came nearer and nearer. “I ought to have something to wave,” said Jack, “to make her see us. I don’t believe she’ll stop for us unless we signal her in some such way.”

“Why not my red scarf!” said the young lady. “Stop, I’ll get it for you.”

She handed the bright red scarf to Jack, who tied it to the end of an oar. The schooner was now some three quarters of a mile away. Jack stood up in the boat, and began waving the scarf at the end of the blade, hallooing as he did so. As the course of the schooner was laid, she would run past them about half a mile distant. “I don’t believe she’s going to stop for us, after all,” said Jack. “Bear the tiller a little to the left. That’s as it should be. Now hold it steady, and I’ll wave again.” Then, even as he spoke, he saw that those aboard the schooner were hauling in the foresail and mainsail, and that she was coming about. “She is going to stop for us!” he cried.

The schooner had gone a little past them before her sails swung over; then, sweeping around in a great semi-circle, she bore down upon them, bow on. Jack laid down the oar, and, taking the tiller again, brought the yawl up into the wind, and so lay waiting for the schooner to reach them. She ran to within maybe thirty or forty yards of them, and then, coming up into the wind, lay rising and falling, swinging slowly back and forth with the regular heave of the ground-swell. She looked very near. There was a group of faces clustered forward, looking out at them across the restless water, and another little group of three men and a woman stood at the open gangway. A large, rough man, with a red face prickled over with a stubby beard, hailed them. He wore baggy breeches tied at the knees, and a greasy red waistcoat. “Boat ahoy!” he called out. “What boat is that?”

Jack was standing up in the yawl. “We’ve come up from North Carolina!” he called back in answer. “We’ve just escaped from the pirates.”

“Is that Miss Eleanor Parker?” the other called out instantly.

“Ay!” said Jack.

There was an instant commotion aboard the schooner, and the captain called out: “Bring your boat over here!”

Jack seated himself and set the oars into the rowlocks. He pulled the bow of the boat around with a few quick strokes, and then rowed toward the schooner. In a minute or so he was close alongside. The men and the woman were standing on the deck just above, looking down at him. The six or eight men of the crew were also standing at the rail, gazing at them. Jack could see that the schooner carried as a cargo three or four hogsheads of tobacco and a great load of lumber.

“Was it you brought the young lady away?” said the captain to Jack. “You’re a mightily young fellow to do that, if you did do it.”

“I didn’t bring her off my own self,” said Jack. “One of the pirates helped us get away. But Blackbeard came up with us at Currituck Inlet, and before we could get away the man who helped us was shot. He died last night.”

“So, then!” said the captain. “Then it was Blackbeard, arter all, who carried off the young lady, was it?” Then he added, “Colonel Parker’s at Norfolk now. I’ll run back with you, and tow the yawl into the bargain, if the young lady’ll guarantee me that her father’ll pay me five pounds for doing it.”

“Five pounds!” cried Jack. “Why, that is a deal of money, master, for such a little thing.”

“Well, ’tis the best I’ll do. It may lose me three days or more, and I won’t do it for less.”

“Oh, it does not matter,” said the young lady to Jack, in a low voice. “I’ll promise him that papa will pay him five pounds.”

Jack felt that the captain was taking advantage of her probable eagerness to return, but he also saw that she would not allow him to bargain at such a time. “She says her father will pay it, master,” he said; “but ’tis a great deal of money to make her promise.”

The captain of the schooner did not reply to this latter part of Jack’s speech. “Here, Kitchen,” he said to the mate, “help her ladyship aboard. Look alive, now!”

The mate jumped down into the boat (he was in his bare feet), and he and Jack helped the young lady to the deck above. Jack followed immediately after her, and the mate remained, busying himself in making the yawl-boat fast.

“Here, Molly,” said the captain to the woman, who was his wife, “take her young ladyship into my cabin and make her comfortable.”

Jack was standing, looking around him like one in a dream. The crew and the man whom the captain afterward called Mr. Jackson (whom Jack took to be a passenger) stood staring at him. The schooner was a common coaster. The decks were littered and dirty; the captain and the crew rough and ordinary.

“This way, master,” said the captain; and then he, too, went down into the cabin. It was close and hot, and smelled musty and stuffy. The young lady was sitting at the table, while the woman, the captain’s wife, was busy in the inner cabin beyond. She had left the door open, and Jack, from where he sat, could see her making up a tumbled bed in the berth. He could also see a sea-chest, some hanging clothes, a map, and a clock through the open door. The schooner was getting under way again, and he could hear the pat of bare footsteps passing across the deck overhead, the creaking of the yards, and then the ripple and gurgle of the water alongside.

“When did you leave Bath Town?” said the captain.

“On Wednesday morning early,” said Jack. Now that all was over, he was feeling very dull and heavily oppressed in the reaction from the excitement that had kept him keyed up to endure. His hands, from which the skin had been rubbed by rowing, had begun again to throb and burn painfully; he had not noticed before how great was the smart. He looked at them, picking at the loose skin. Nobody cared how much his hands hurt him, now that Dred was gone, and his throat began choking at the foolish thought.

“Wednesday! Why, ’tis only Sunday now. D’ ye mean to say that ye’ve sailed all the way from Bath Town in five days in that there yawl-boat?”

“Is this Sunday?” said Jack. “Why, so ’tis.”

“How long will it take to get to Norfolk?” asked the young lady.

“Well, we ought to get there by midnight if this wind holds,” said the captain.

“The berth’s made up now if your ladyship’d like to lie down,” said the captain’s wife, appearing at the door of the inner cabin.

After the young lady had gone, the captain and the man named Jackson plied Jack with questions as to all that had happened. He answered dully and inertly; he wished they would let him alone and not tease him with questions. “I’m tired,” he said, at last; “I’d like to lie down for a while.”

“I suppose you be feeling kind of used up, ben’t you?” asked the man Jackson.

Jack nodded his head.

“Won’t you have a bite to eat first?” asked the captain.

“I’m not hungry,” said Jack; “I want to rest – that’s all.”

“I’m going to let you have the mate’s cabin,” said the captain. “You said I made the young lady promise too much for carrying ye back to Norfolk. Well, I’m doing all I can to make you comfortable. I give my cabin to her, and I give the mate’s cabin to you; and if you’ll only wait I’ll have a good hot supper cooked.”

“Just where did the bullet hit him?” asked Jackson.

“I don’t know just where,” said Jack. “Somewhere about here (indicating the spot with his finger). Can I go to the mate’s cabin now?”

“Well, I think ‘twas mortal strange,” said Jackson, “that he didn’t fall down straight away, or at least drop the tiller, or something of the sort. He just sat there, did he?”

The mate came in, still in his bare feet. He sat down without saying anything, and stared at Jack.

“I’m going to let him have your berth for to-night, Kitchen,” said the captain.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE RETURN

THE breeze had fallen during the night so that it was nearly daylight when the schooner came to anchor off Norfolk. The captain sent the mate directly to carry the news of the young lady’s return to Colonel Parker’s schooner. Colonel Parker himself was not on board, but the lieutenant came at once out of his cabin, half dressed as he was, and the mate told him the news. Mr. Maynard at once sent word ashore to Colonel Parker, and then had himself rowed aboard the schooner on which the young lady was.

Within an hour Colonel Parker came off from the town. The first man he met when he stepped aboard the coaster was Lieutenant Maynard. “Why, Maynard, is that you?” he said, and Mr. Maynard had never seen him so overcome. He grasped the lieutenant’s hand and wrung it and wrung it again. His fine, broad face twitched with the effort he made to suppress his emotions. “Where is she?” he said, turning around almost blindly to Captain Dolls, who, with his mate, had been standing at a little distance looking on. “This way, your honor,” said the captain with alacrity.

He led the way across the deck to the great cabin; Lieutenant Maynard did not accompany them. “She’s in my cabin here, your honor,” said the captain. “I let her have it, for ‘twas the best aboard. Her ladyship’s asleep yet, I do suppose. If your honor’ll sit down here I’ll send my wife into the cabin to wake her and to help her dress.”

“Never mind,” said the colonel, “where is she – in here?” He opened the door and went into the cabin. She was lying upon the berth sleeping. She had only loosened her clothes when she lay down the night before, and she was lying fully dressed. “Nelly!” said Colonel Parker, leaning over her, “Nelly!” She did not stir. He had not entirely closed the door, and it stood a little ajar. Captain Dolls, in the great cabin beyond, stood looking in, and for the moment Colonel Parker did not notice him. “Nelly!” he said again. “Nelly!” and he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

She stirred; she raised her arm; she drew the back of her hand across her eyes; she opened her eyes and they looked directly into his face as he leaned over her. “What is it?” she said, vacantly.

Colonel Parker was crying. “’Tis I – ’tis thy poor father, Nelly.” The tears were trickling down his cheeks, but he did not notice them. Suddenly her vacancy melted and dissolved, and she was wide awake. “Papa! O papa!” she cried, and instantly her arms were about his neck and she was in his arms.

She cried and cried. Colonel Parker, still holding her with one arm, reached in his pocket and drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes and his cheeks. As he did so he caught sight of Captain Dolls standing without in the great cabin looking in at them. The captain moved instantly away, but Colonel Parker reached out and closed the door.

Presently she looked up into his face, her own face wet with tears. “Mamma,” she said, – “how is poor mamma?”

“She is well – she is very well,” he said. “My dear! my dear!”

Once more she flung her arms about his neck. She pressed her lips to his again and again, weeping tumultuously as she did so. “O papa, if you only knew what I’ve been through!”

“I know – I know,” he said.

“Oh, but you can’t know all that I’ve been through – all the dreadful, terrible things. They shot poor Mr. Dred, and he died. I saw them shoot him, – I was in the boat, – I saw him die. Oh, papa! I can’t tell you all. Oh, it was so terrible. He lay on the sand and died. There was sand on the side of his face, and the young man, Jack, did not see it to brush it off, and I could not do it, and there it was.”

“There! there!” said Colonel Parker, soothingly. “Don’t talk about it, my dear. Tell me about other things. The sailor who came to bring me off told me there was a young man – a lad – with you when they picked you up down at the capes.”

“Yes,” she said, “that was late yesterday afternoon.”

“But the young man; is he the young man you call Jack?”

“Yes, that is he.”

“He is aboard here now, is he not? Who is he?”

So they talked together for a long time. She had lain down again, and she held his hand in hers as he sat upon the edge of the berth beside her. As they talked she stroked the back of his hand, and once she raised it to her lips and kissed it.

A while later Jack was awakened from a sound sleep by some one shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw that a rough, red face was bending over just above him. In the first instant of waking he could not remember where he was, or what face it was looking down at him. Then he recognized Captain Dolls. He was, first of all, conscious of a throbbing, beating pain in the palms of his hands. It seemed to him that he had been feeling it all night.

“What is it?” he said. “What do you want?”

“Well,” said Captain Dolls, “we’re at Norfolk, and have been here for three hours and more.”

“Norfolk!” said Jack, vaguely. “Are we, then, at Norfolk? How came we there?” His mind was still clouded with the fumes of sleep.

Captain Dolls burst out laughing. “We got there by sailing,” he said. “How else? But come! get up! Colonel Parker’s aboard, and he wants to see you. He’s out in the great cabin now.”

Then Jack was instantly wide awake. “Very well,” he said, “then I’ll go to him directly. Have you a bucket of water here that I may wash myself? I’m not fit to go as I am.”

He stood lingering for a moment before he entered the cabin. He could hear Colonel Parker’s voice within, and he shrank from entering, with a sudden trepidation.

“Go on,” said Captain Dolls, who had followed him. “What d’ ye stop for?” Then Jack opened the door and went in.

Some one rose as he entered; it was Colonel Parker. In a swift look Jack saw that the young lady had been sitting beside her father. She had been holding her father’s hand, and she released it as he arose. Captain Doll’s wife was also in the cabin busily packing the young lady’s clothes ready for her departure. Jack knew that Eleanor Parker was looking at him, and he also saw in the glance that she had been crying. Colonel Parker was gazing at him also. “Was it, then, one so young as you,” he said, “who would dare to bring my Nelly away from the villains? Come hither,” and as Jack came lingeringly forward Colonel Parker reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder, holding it firmly. He looked long and steadily at Jack’s face. “Ay,” said he, “’tis a good, honest face.” Jack was very conscious of the presence of the captain’s wife, and it made him feel more embarrassed than he would otherwise perhaps have been. He could not look up. “Ay,” said Colonel Parker again, “’tis a good, honest face, and the face of an honest young man. I am glad ‘twas such a good, honest soul that brought our Nelly back to us. We shall never, never forget what you have done – never forget it.”